Appraently, Bush is not the only politician to see his poll numbers decline. We know about Tony Blair, but how much play are the French getting now? The Clearstream scandal is all the rage these days in the land of our moral betters.

It is the search for the person who concocted the list that has turned into an affair of state. According to testimony leaked to Le Monde, a left-leaning newspaper, General Philippe Rondot, a retired top spy, told the inquiry that Dominique de Villepin, then foreign minister and now prime minister, had asked him to investigate Mr Sarkozy—on orders from President Jacques Chirac. Mr de Villepin and Mr Chirac each took the unusual step of issuing a communiqué to deny this claim. Mr de Villepin, already reeling from defeat on the streets over his labour reforms, told a raucous parliament this week that he was “profoundly shocked and hurt” by the “campaign of slander and lies” against him. He flatly ruled out his own resignation.

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